Product

⚾ There is plenty of talk about the benefits of employing a product led growth (PLG) strategy, but much less on how to actually implement one. Shimon Tolts, CEO of Datree.io shared the specific steps they took to adopt the model, which led them from 0 to 150 companies in a 3 month span. They started by making their product easier to access, removing their “book a demo” button in favor of a “quick start” self service option. They then made sure to show value right off the bat. Datree prevents Kubernetes misconfigurations from reaching production, so when a user creates an account, Datree immediately runs a process to identify these misconfigurations, demonstrating why they are worth the price tag. Lastly, they continue to drive new users to their tool by going all in on hands on product tutorials, pushed by industry influencers. The commonality is that all these efforts – putting product at the focus on their GTM, and let their hard work do the talking.

🍩 Product management careers get treated differently than engineering, design, and most other tech careers in that there isn’t a point where you can comfortably stay an individual contributor – the idea is to move up in your rank, or move out. There seems to be a much lesser focus on the PRODUCT part than MANAGEMENT in product management, which is why Ken Norton (previously Director of Product for Google), argues that we need to fight for  a dual product management career path. What he means by this is a role where you manage the product resources for a project rather than a full division, because the reality is that not all people are suited to (or even interested in) being leadership. This non-management role can be key to innovation for big companies as well, because it enables the employee to be an individualistic thinker and avoid the sometimes cumbersome process and structure you find in big co’s.

🧐 The Product Coalition group had an interesting write up on why you should separate problems and solutions in your roadmaps. It sounds a bit counterintuitive, but meshing problems with solutions right off the bat assumes the next feature you build will solve your current problem. In reality, the best way to solve your problem might not be a new feature – it could be a change to an existing one or even deleting one altogether. Building a problem focused roadmap, where each of your teams works on a specific problem (manifested in the form on an OKR), and dedicating significant time to uncover and validate the problems which exist, is their suggested solution.

🏭 The Net Promoter Score (NPS) method for measuring customer satisfaction certainly has its flaws, but it’s hard to argue that a high NPS isn’t reflective of a well engineered product and support team. Entytle, a CRM for industrial OEMs, shared some tips on how they were able to get their score up to a 61 (stellar in NPS terms) during the middle of a pandemic. They emphasize delivering value quickly, which can be pretty hard for enterprise products with longer implementation times such as themselves. Their team cleverly battles this by giving users easy wins during onboarding, like teasers showing what a fully ramped up user looks like to build excitement, and keeping initial onboarding sessions light so they don't overwhelm.